Reduce, reuse and Recycle

This week we will be learning about where the garbage goes that our garbage men take from the curb each week.  This video will help our students understand the process of recycling and garbage.

Our vocabulary this week is crush, recycle, real and pretend.  The weekly question is Where does trash go and What do workers do?  We will be making an earth out of paper mache and measuring each other with recycled items.

If your family are POP drinkers, please send in any empty bottles as we would like to make bird feeders out of the bottles.

Important dates:

May 10-Last field trip of the year to the Dunham Tavern.

May 24-PM DAP students will come in early and have lunch in the gym with the Kindergarteners

May 30th- Field day

May 31- Last day with students

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

What do we know about recycling?  How can we take care of our Earth?  This Study is about Reducing, Reusing and Recycling.  Our questions for the week are :  Did you see any trash on the way to school today?  What could you do with this junk?  Does all trash stink? and  Should we throw trash out the window of our car or building?

When we think about recycling, the vocabulary for the week is recycling, describe, reuse, reduce and organize.  Our math is addition and subtraction and our review letters are F, G, H I and J.

We will finish our Art Projects for the ART Show and create our own art using trash.  Do you have a recycling bin at home . Discuss its use with your children.

Here is a fun video of a garbage collector named Mr.Gilly.  Enjoy!!

Balls!!

This is our last week of our ball study.  Our questions for the week include; have you been to a store that sells balls, what animals play with balls and finally, do heavy balls bounce ? The children have enjoyed playing with a variety of balls this unit.  We have golfed, played balloon tennis, creating ramps to see which items will roll down the ramps and finally painting with many different balls.

This week the story is the fable, Three Billy Goats Gruff, and the story Play Ball.    The students will try to retell the story of the goats using a bridge in the housekeeping area and discuss the balls used in a variety of games.  Our Math unit is patterning and we will begin our review of the letters in the alphabet with A,B,C,D,E.

Reminder:  This week is a three day week as DAP will be closed on Thursday, giving the staff the opportunity to go to the Ohio Association for the Education of Young Children conference.  This is an super way our staff can learn new things together.   We will return on Monday with many new ideas.

BALL STUDY WEEK #1.

This week is our introduction to Balls.  We will be reading two stories, Play Ball and Bounce.  Both explore the subject of balls and how they are used in our daily lives.  See how many varieties of balls you have in your own home and we will see if your student can tell us about them when they come to school on Monday. Encourage them to identify their favorite kind of ball.

We will graph our favorite balls, see how many times they bounce and determine which ones are big and small.  Out letters for the week are Q and R. Encourage our child to practice writing their letters at home and remind them that we always start at the top of the page when beginning our letters.  We call it the skyline. We will be patterning a variety of balls for math.

PM class:  This week Miss Abela will visit us on Monday and talk to us about our up coming field trip to The Music Settlement.  We will hear about Dance stories with the Inlet Dancers.  This is a fun trip as the students get to dance with professional dancers and see what and how it feels to move in different ways.

Welcome to the Olympic Village!!

For the next three weeks we will be stepping away from our curriculum and engage the children in learning about the Olympics.  Miss Peggy’s classroom will be Korea, the host country and Miss Megan’s class will be Germany.  We will learn about our country’s, count medals of the races each day and predict who may win.  While you are home with your child, please talk about what they may see and learn about the Olympics.  Feel free to Google your child’s country and learn together about the Olympics.  We are super excited to to this project with the children and know they will love it too.  They will learn about ice skating, skiing, curling, bob sledding  and many more Olympic events!!   The housekeeping area in each room will be the Olympic Village with simple events held there.  For art we will make the country’s flag and other Olympic crafts.  Math will continue as usual and this week we will be counting to 20 using a variety of ways.  Our letters of the week will be I and J.  The children are really working hard on making their upper case letters.

The mascot for the Olympics is a white tiger.  Here is an animated snippet of the mascot and some games the athletes will be participating in.

This week our focus is “what are buildings made of “? and “what tools do we use?”.  We will be making our own buildings in centers by using Jenga blocks and play-dough, and marshmallows with toothpicks. In one center we will be making a map of our own town using real pictures of buildings in Fairview Park.  Our dramatic play area will be turned into a construction site!!! The sensory table will have wet sand and sand castle forms to make buildings. Our letters this week are E and F and Math will be focusing on shapes and using different shapes to draw our own building on blue prints. This is going to be a fun week!!!!

This week we will devote our time at school to activities surrounding the Holiday. We will be reading stories that include manipulatives for the students to play with including, If you take a Mouse to the Movies, The First Snow and 10 on a Sled.  The housekeeping area will be designated the gift wrapping area, the sensory table will be filled with ice or scissors and pine needles or wrapping paper.  We will strengthen our fine motor skills with making candy cane ornaments made out of beads, a que tip snowflake and a math tree.

Wednesday is our last day with students and will be Pajama Day.  Have your child dress in their favorite pajamas and get ready for the Polar Express.  We will serve hot chocolate and cookies to the children for snack.

On behalf of the entire DAP team I would like to wish you and yours a very Happy Holiday and we will see you in the New Year.

Feeling Grateful!!

It’s that time of year when we reflect upon those things that make us feel grateful.  I am extremely grateful for Miss Lindsey as she took over my class and made it better than before.  Thank you Miss Lindsey for all that you did and we wish you the best of luck in your new endeavor.

I will be returning to work on Monday Nov. 27th. I will have a few restrictions (like sitting on the floor criss cross applesauce), but am good as new and look forward to seeing all the children and staff in the building.  If you are in the building, stop in and say hello.